Can they?

An interesting question was asked in Sunday School this week.

We were asked, Can people outside the Church and without the ordinances and covenants of baptism and confirmation receive forgiveness and the influence of the Atonement? As I thought about the question, I realized that all too often we as members of the Church think that people outside the Church can't be happy. We think sometimes that they have no access to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that without baptism that they can't repent or change, that they are sinners. Regardless of the intention of the teacher, I felt like they were looking for a no with the question, that we were supposed to think that those who have not been baptized don't have access to the Atonement. Don't get me wrong, I understand completely the need for ordinances and authority. I just think that there's room to give people the benefit of the doubt even though (or because) they are in different circumstances than we may be. 

The question still stands: Can they receive forgiveness and access to the Atonement?

I say yes.

I say that if "they" don't have access to the Atonement then neither do I.
I say that the Lord is a God of mercy who is happy to forgive and if we reach out to Him, whether we are baptized or not, He will reach back to us.
I say that Saul was a man whose life was entrenched in sin, blasphemy, and he was an accomplice in the murder of Stephen. I dare say that the Atonement of Jesus Christ reached this man before he was baptized.
I say that if the Atonement cannot heal and save those who are currently outside of the covenant of baptism— I dare to say that if I let myself believe that, then I must also believe that the Atonement cannot heal and save me.

The benefit of the doubt is that it is blasted away by the truth. Smithereens. The truth will leave no remnants of doubt, provided we accept that truth.

And yes, whoever you are, Christ's Atonement, His suffering, and His death and resurrection were for you. Whoever you are.

Women's Conference

Really, this is all I wanted to post here. In honor of BYU Women's Conference, I here post some of the tweets I've seen floating around. That is all.

I feel a little woozy already.

Getting to know people

So today I discovered that many couples (at least in Provo or at BYU) don't tend to know one another very well when they get serious/engaged/married. I talked with my neighbor Jane (names have been changed to protect the innocent) about this for a while, and told her that I feel that on a date you can get to know a person much better by asking them if they've ever collected anything than by asking what they are studying. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying; it's still really good to know what career goals your significant other has. However, if you know that, but you don't know them, I think there's some room for improvement. Jane mentioned that "have you ever collected anything?" is an excellent question, and wanted a list of good get-to-know-you questions that will actually help to get to know a person. Here goes:

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that you should prepare a list of these questions and ask them all in order on the first date. Rather, I mean to say that over the course of a relationship or courtship, this type of question can help get to know a person better.

Do you have any collections?
What's your favorite shape cloud?
How many uncles do you have? Tell me about them.
What's your favorite color, and why?
Do you know a foreign language? If you could learn another, what would it be?
What makes you most happy?
What makes you sad?
How do you define a classic?
Do you sing in the shower? Wait a second, everyone does... What songs do you sing in the shower?
If you were Italian, what would you change your name to?
How do you think we can effectively end racism, or at least make greater strides in that direction?
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Favorite breakfast?
Cats vs. Dogs? Do you have/like/want pets?
What do you like to do to make other people happy?
What's your favorite class you've ever taken?
If you could be the head of a company, what would it be?
What's your favorite get-to-know-you question?
What's your favorite sound/smell?
What's the soundtrack to your life? (not favorite songs, but rather songs that describe your life best or would provide the most appropriate background music)
What would you do if you were invisable for one day???
What are the best weapons in a food fight?
What does trust mean to you?
If you could have a useless and good for nothing super power, what would it be?



I'll add more as they come up. In the relationship I'm in, these kind of questions get asked all the time.

#prayforboston

Everything seems to have hit the fan over the past few months.
I mean for me, but not just for me. I've lost a few good friends and a lot of time. There are a lot of people in Boston today/this week who are mourning the loss of friends or family members. People are panicked, and there's a lot of negativity going around the venues of social media.

It's easy, all too easy to lose faith in humanity, but not when you find stuff like this:

This was just what I needed. It helped me to remember that if we focus on the good, it can drown out the bad.

The benefit of the doubt we may have in humanity is that it's not nearly as powerful as the hope we can have in humanity.
#bethegood

Because you're supposed to.

So the other day I was eating a navajo taco for lunch and I was shooting the breeze with Sam, a 5th-grader.

I asked him what his favorite subject in school was, and he replied, "P.E....Physical Education...or math." I asked him why he liked math (because I sure don't), and he said, "Because you're supposed to!"

I had no reply. All I could do was laugh and accept his answer. I thought about it later and realized that sometimes there doesn't need to be more explanation than that. Sometimes we need to just accept the answers we get. Sometimes when the answer isn't what we expect, we need to just give the benefit of the doubt and trust whoever we're getting answers from.

The benefit of the doubt is that it gets easier and easier to pinpoint. Doubts force us to ask unnecessary questions, and over time that becomes painfully obvious (and annoying). Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly okay to ask questions and wonder and dream.
The benefit of the doubt is that the doubt will get stuck on the little details and get ripped off as we move forward.

"You're pretty hard on yourself"

I had just handled a situation with a neurological disorder, a roommate, and some paramedics as best I thought I could. But, I was reviewing the events in my head and drawing conclusions from what I had perceived: I was pretty impatient with her... I shouldn't have said that... Why did I get upset with her? I'm working on this whole "be humble" thing and it's definitely not working right now... Why can't I get it to work? Why can't I make these changes? Why can't I—

"You're pretty hard on yourself," I heard from the passenger seat. Great friends tend to know the best time to say things like that.


It's hard to forgive yourself. I find that I am my harshest critic. I perceive more of my mistakes than anyone else does. It's pretty easy to be hard on yourself and not give yourself the benefit of the doubt.

I've been studying grace since then, and I've been finding that it's perfectly okay to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. It's good to recognize your weaknesses and great to take them to the Lord (12:23-29). The Lord wants to work with us and walk with us, and that's exactly the point that helped me let go of my own faults and be more concerned with what the Lord thinks of me and what He wants and where He wants to go. Moses had this pretty figured out (Exodus 33):

 13 Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found ^agrace in thy sight,^bshew me now thy ^cway, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is ^dthy ^epeople.

 14 And [God] said, My ^apresence shall go with thee, and I will give thee ^brest.

 15 And [Moses] said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

 16 For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou ^agoest with us?

If God's not going to go there, then I shouldn't either. He teaches in Ezekiel that if I repent, that my sins should not be mentioned to me anymore. That includes me; I should not mention my sins to me once I repent. God forgets my sins and challenges me to do the same. He invites me to do the same. He wants me to do the same.

The benefit of the doubt is that we know where it comes from. God forgets my sins, I can forget them, Satan doesn't forget them. Satan will throw doubts at me because he cannot forget that I have sinned and that I have repented. I know that doubts don't come from God. Self-doubt doesn't come from God. If I can't forgive myself, those feelings don't come from God. God forgives me, and I can forgive me too.

New Beginnings

Sometimes good things come to an end. Actually, good things usually come to an end. Like a relationship, a friendship, the life of a friend or family member, a great college class, the Animorphs series, etc. But God won't take anything away from us without giving us something better.

That's where the new beginnings come in. When something ends and we start something new, it's easy for doubts to creep in: that didn't work out last time. Remember how they left? It won't work out this time, because it didn't work out last time.

The benefit of the doubt is that it can be left behind when you start something new. Doubt is heavy, and so is the past. If we've been distrusted or distrustful in a relationship, we can leave that distrust behind when we start over and be completely open, honest, and trusting. If we've lost a friend or family member to death, doubts may come. The next time we make a friend, however, we don't have to keep thoughts in the forefront of our mind like, well, he'll probably die too. All my friends die. See how it doesn't really make sense to apply the doubts of the past when we start over and begin something else?

The benefit of the doubt is that we can leave it behind. We shouldn't carry old problems into new beginnings. The heavy nature of doubt makes it so that if we are willing to put it down completely, we can leave it there. It feels good to start over and leave the past behind us.